The New Work

Play existed way before people. Music, too, exists independent of people.
On earth, the birds are playing, with the crickets doing the evening show along with coyotes doing background alto. The ocean is graced by the elegant sound of the whale.
For a while the sounds of people were the didgeridoo in Australia, bongo in Africa and tom tom in America. Yodeling in Scandinavia. Strings in India and Asia. Depending on the continent, a being on earth, including longtime visitors, could recognize that local human music.

These days all of our musical instruments can’t really be associated with people on earth as much as the noise of motors. Water carries noise further, and though we don’t live there, the pounding from engineering projects and piers, motors, and all the different sonar testing may let our noise pollution reach as far as our other garbage.

There is logic to the wish that the society becomes more Amishish. The noise dies down.

Even with all the work on the farm, we can’t all be farm hands. Without the greed and with fresh, sustainable technology, there’s not going to be all that much in the way of cycling through some whopping leisure time, which can sometimes be pretty productive.

Some day in the future, any quiet hum of electric motors will be drowned out by a new sound associated with humans. It’s the richness of existence being celebrated by our orchestras of neighborhoods, local armies of harmony.

You know that this could happen. What’s hard about it are the minds of the materialized.

Materialism will give way to the appreciation of time or focus, sound and feeling.

Play will be the new work.

Thank you for reading.